The Dance of Strange Carnivores
by Spylace
Summary: The makings of a bankai, it's Shirayuki's turn.


**Title:** The Dance of Strange Carnivores  
**Summary:** The makings of a bankai, it's Shirayuki's turn.  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Pairing: **none  
**Notes: **Spoilers for the latest chapters. Something that quickly turned dark in the lieu of my maudlin state at ass o' clock in the morning.  
**Disclaimer:** Huuuuh no  
**Word count: **1000+

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Sode no Shirayuki enters Seireitei at the behest of a little girl who loves her. Hyourinmaru is there to greet her on the other end, bearing a robe too fine for her skin, something as light as snow but deceptively warm. She feels tears prickle her eyes when his fingers card through her hair, strangely pale, bare and naked without the ever-present ice.

Hyourinmaru's hands are unaccountably soft, a scholar's hands, an _artiste's_. The other zanpakuto possesses the hands of a princeling, having never known the toils of starvation and poverty, what it means to grow callouses from following the way of the sword, never suffered stains or knobby knuckles from holding a stiff-brushed pen.

But this matters little to the spirit of snow who has been wrenched so violently awake. She holds back a scream when she finds her, her master, her beloved, a Quincy gloating over her like he is god with the stolen sword at his hands.

She draws her own steel, a handful of snow between her fingers as she stands to fight. But Hyourinmaru holds her back, steady like the gradual freezing of water into solid particles. And like water, ice, mist and the winter storm, the gradation of his emotions frighten her into stealing, allowing him to loom as a teacher might of a favored student, guiding her eyes elsewhere, something that she has missed, things that she has forgotten.

"Peace little sister." Hyourinmaru murmurs. "You are of no use to her."

Sode no Shirayuki's expressions twist into a mask of winter rage. She knows the truth she hears in Hyourinmaru's words, how weak she is, unable to move at Rukia's beck and call. There is something wrong with the world they were called to though Hyourinmaru appears unaffected, droplets of water steaming off the tips of his fingers.

In the background, she hears Itegumo's pale-haired lieutenant complain of the weather, the heat spell that rolls across her skin stealing moisture.

She understands.

They are as still as a stagnant puddle beneath the dazzling glare. Hyourinmaru boils like water boils, air bubbles hissing angrily like living things when the sheets of ice thaw and sublimate like petals on the wind. The snow sloughs off like dead skin, slivers of metal splintering off his physical body, now useless without his spirit to honor it. The hilt falls from the little captain's hand, the brassy guard bouncing dully off the pavement.

"Why am I here?"

"Watch"

They are not built for this, none of them are, the fury of Ryuujin Jakka fed by the Captain-Commander's grief. The clouds that Gonryomaru wrought circles with a vengeance, rumbling threats in their own languages overhead. These are not the pregnant cumulus nor the wind-tossed storms that Hyourinmaru summons but massive thunderheads which seek to splinter their frames. They are born of the Captain-Commander's wrath and his commitment to defend Soul Society at all costs, even if it means razing what is left in hopes that something may survive in the faded ashes.

Never had she thought herself weak, in the presence of Zabimaru, Senbonzakura or Hyourinmaru, the most powerful of all. But in the stark heat, they are diminished, lesser versions of themselves in this inhospitable realm Ryuujin Jakka has invoked. Rukia cries out from thirst, her face pink and wounded. Even the greatest of the ice-family bears his teeth when melt drips down to his chin.

There are sacrifices, Hyourinmaru explains, one makes to achieve captaincy, the famed final release, each unique to their own. And it seems like a simple, elegant solution to seal these weapons away, turn them against their masters, render them helpless in their time of need. Why had no one else thought of taking the zanpakuto away from their shinigami, leaving them ripe for slaughter? Aizen could have achieved his ascendance all too easily had the Gotei 13 not interfered, if the swords of the Vizard were broken before being exiled to the material world, if a boy, a mere child had not the courage to build his own.

"I don't understand."

"Everyone requires a sacrifice." Hyourinmaru emphasizes with his snake-like gaze. "The higher the stakes, the higher the price. That is the beginnings of a bankai."

"But what can they possibly give us?" She demands in bewilderment, hands itching to reach out and sooth the fever away from her girl. "They owe us their lives."

Hyourinmaru sways as though caught in a breeze, his hair dark like wet grass and eyes the color of freshly fallen snow. His vision is split in many places, like a torch shared across guarded gates. She doesn't see what he sees, she hopes she never does.

"Sometimes, it is not enough. Sometimes, we will desire more. You are young yet little sister, your bond untested and untried. It is inevitable. When she calls you, when you go to her, you must draw the line—Ryuujin Jakka claimed his life, Senbonzakura his love, Sogyo no Kotowari his health, Minazuki her youth and Suzumebachi her innocence. Power is not clean, even you cannot avoid it."

"And you Hyourinmaru?" She swallows. "What did you ask of yours? The little captain."

"An end."

He closes his eyes.

Water runs down his sleeve, a counterpoint to his captain whose palms are sticky with blood. A shinigami, the blonde one, much admired, swears as she tries to assuage the flow, her fingers pinched tight around the long slash that spirals down his stick-thin arm. Already, his haori is more battered red than white, edged with rust slowly turning black.

The ice is gone and he breathes tiredly in the open sunlight. No longer any water to wear as a cloak, the Quincy shrinks at being left out in the open, sweating a pearlescent glaze down the top of its graying face.

"All of us are creatures of forfeit, born from sacrifices that should have never been made."

She remembers. Sode no Shirayuki remembers his previous master, the last time he had set foot in Seireitei. There is a storm verging on the horizon and once again, Hyourinmaru is needed. But she fears him as she fears no one else, what he can do and what he can make her do.

"And you sister?" He turns to her just as Rukia does, calling out with the last of her fading strength. The color of her reiatsu resonates through her as nothing had since her birth. Hyourinmaru presses a quiet kiss on top of her head. "What will you choose?"

And she grieves at her folly, the utter powerlessness to prevent it. But beneath the underneath, a thrum of excitement shoots through her at a chance come at last. Hyourinmaru hides a smile in her white hair as though proud.

"Go"


End file.
